Mahomet, Founder of Islam Part 7

In Muharram 622 (April) the Hegira took place, and six months sufficed Mahomet to establish his power securely enough to be able to send out his first expedition against the Kureisch in Ramadan (December) of the same year. The party was led by Hamza, whose soldier qualities were only at the beginning of their development, and probably consisted of a few Muslim hors.e.m.e.n on their beautiful swift mounts and one or two spearmen, and possibly several warriors skilled in the use of arrows. They sallied forth from Medina and went to meet the caravan as it prepared to pa.s.s by their town. The Kureisch had placed Abu Jahl in command--a man whose invincible hatred for Islam and the Prophet had manifested itself in the persecution at Mecca, and whose hostility increased as the Muslim power advanced.

The caravan was guarded, but none too strongly, and Hamza's troop pursued and had almost attacked it when a Bedouin chief of the desert more powerful than either party interposed and compelled the Muslim to withdraw, while he forbade Abu Jahl to pursue them or attempt revenge. So the caravan continued its way unmolested into Syria and there exchanged its gums, leather, and frankincense for the silks and precious metals, the fine stuffs and luxurious draperies which made the Syrian markets a vivid medley of sheen and gloss, stored with bright colours and burnished surfaces shimmering in the hot radiance of the East. In Jan. 623 the caravan set out homeward "on its lone journey o'er the desert," and again the Muslim sent out an attacking party in the hope of securing this larger prize. But the Kureisch were wise and had provided themselves with a stronger escort before which the Muslim could do nothing but retreat--not, however, before they had sent a few tentative arrows at the cavalcade. Obeida, their leader and a cousin of Mahomet, gave the command to shoot, and is renowned henceforth as "he who shot the first arrow for Islam."

After a month another essay was made upon a northward-bound caravan by Sa'd, again without success, for he had miscalculated dates and missed his quarry by some days. Each leader on his return to Medina was received with honour by Mahomet as one who had shown his prowess in the cause of Isalm and presented with a white banner.

So far the prophet himself had not taken the field; now, however, in the summer and autumn of 623, in spite of signs that all was not well with the Jewish alliance at home, Mahomet took the field in person and conducted three larger but still unsuccessful expeditions; the last attacking levy of October 623 consisted of 200 men, but even then Mahomet was able to effect nothing against the Kureischite escort. The attempted raid had nevertheless an important outcome, for by this exhibition of strength Mahomet succeeded in convincing a neighboring desert tribe, hitherto friendly to Mecca, of the advisability of seeking alliance with the Muslim.

The treaty between Mahomet and the Bedouin tribe marks the beginning of a significant development in his foreign polity. Like the Romans, and all military nations, he knew the worth of making advantageous alliances, while he was clear-sighted enough to realise that the struggle with Mecca was inevitable. During the months preceding the battle of Bedr he concluded several treaties with desert tribes, and it is to this policy he owes in part his power to maintain his aggressive att.i.tude towards the Kureisch, for with the alliance of the tribes around the caravan routes Mahomet could be sure of hampering the Meccan trade.

While the Prophet was in the field he left representatives to care for the affairs of his city. These representatives were designated by him, and were always members of his personal following. Ali and Abu Bekr were most often chosen until All proved his worth as a warrior, and so usually accompanied or commanded the expeditionary force. The representatives held their authority direct from Mahomet, and had in all matters the identical power of the Prophet during his absence. It speaks well for the loyalty and ac.u.men of these ministers that Mahomet was enabled to leave the city so often and so confidently, and that the government continued as if under his personal supervision.

Whether the Jews were overbold because of Mahomet's frequent absences, or whether they now became conscious of the trend of Mahomet's policy towards the absorption of the Jewish element within the city into Islam, will never be made clear, beyond the fact that the Jewish tribes were not enthusiastic in their union with the Muslim, and that their national character precluded them from accepting an alliance that threatened the autonomy of their religion. It is, however, certain that the discontent of the Jews voiced itself more and more loudly as the year advanced. The suras of the period are full of revilings and threats against them, and form a greater contrast coming after the later Meccan suras wherein Israel was honoured and its heroes held up as examples. A few Jews had been won over to his cause, but the ma.s.s showed themselves either hostile or indifferent to the federal idea. As yet no definite sundering of relationships had occurred, but everything pointed to a speedy dissolution of the treaty unless one side or the other moderated its views.

The autumn of 628 saw Mahomet fully established in Medina. He had made his worth known by his energy and organising power, by his devotion to Allah and his zeal for the faith he had founded. The Medinans regarded him already as their natural leader, and he had definitely adopted their city as his headquarters. Through his skill as a statesman and his loyalty to an idea he wrought out, the foundations of his future state, and if the latter months of 623 saw him not yet strong enough to overcome the Meccans, at least he was so firmly established that he could afford to dispense with any overtures to the increasingly hostile Jews, and he had gained sufficient adherents to allow him to contemplate with equanimity the prospect of a sharp and prolonged struggle with the Kureisch.

CHAPTER X

THE SECESSION OF THE JEWS

_"Even though thou shouldst bring every kind of sign to those who have received the Scriptures, yet Thy Kibla they will not adopt; nor shalt thou adopt their Kibla; nor will one part of them adopt the Kibla of the other."--The Kuran_.

Mahomet realised the position of affairs at Medina too acutely to allow of his undertaking in person any predatory expeditions against the Kureisch during the autumn and winter of 623. The Jews were chafing under his tacit a.s.sumption of State control, and although their murmurings had not reached the recklessness of strife, still both their leaders and the Muslim perceived that their disaffection was inevitable. Insecurity at home, however, did not prevent him from sending out an expedition in Rajab (October) of that year under Abdallah. Rajab is a sacred month in the Mohamedan calendar, one in which war is forbidden. Strictly, therefore, in sending out an expedition at all just then Mahomet was transgressing against the laws of that religion which, purged of its idolatries, he claimed as his own. But it was a favourable opportunity to attack the Kureischite caravan on its way to Taif, and therefore Mahomet recked nothing of the prohibition.

Taif was a very distant objective for an expeditionary band from Medina, and that Mahomet contemplated attack upon his enemy by a company so far removed from its base is convincing proof, should any be needed, of his confidence in his followers' prowess and his conciliation of the tribes lying between the two hostile cities.

Sealed orders were given to Abdallah, with instructions not to open the parchment until he was two days south of Medina. At sunset on the second day he came with his eight followers to a well in the midst of the desert. There under the few date palms, which gave them rough shelter, he broke the seal and read:

"When thou readest this writing depart unto Nakhla, between Taif and Mecca; there lie in wait for the Kureisch, and bring thy comrades news concerning them."

As Abdallah read his mind alternated between apprehension and daring, and turning to his companions he took counsel of them.

"Mahomet has commanded me to go to Nakhla and there await the Kureisch; also he has commanded me to say unto you whoever desireth martyrdom for Islam let him follow me, and whoever will not suffer it, let him turn back. As for me, I am resolved to carry out the commands of G.o.d's Prophet"

Then one and all the eight companions a.s.sured him they would not forsake him until the quest was achieved. At dawn they resumed their march and arrived at length at Nakhla, where they encountered the Kureisch caravan laden with spice and leather. Now, it was the last day of the month of Rajab, wherein it was unlawful to fight, wherefore the Muslim took counsel, saying:

"If we fight not this day, they will elude us and escape."

But the Prophet's implied command was strong enough to induce initiative and hardihood in the small attacking party. They bore down upon the Kureisch, showering arrows in their path, so that one man was killed and several wounded. The rest forsook their merchandise and fled, leaving behind them two prisoners, whose retreat had been cut off. Abdallah was left in possession of the field, and joyfully he returned to Medina, bearing with him the first plunder captured by the Muslim.

But his return led Mahomet into a quandary from which there seemed no escape. Politically, he was bound to approve Abdallah's deed; religiously, he could neither laud it nor share the fruits of it. For days the spoils remained undivided, but Abdallah was not punished or even reprimanded. Meanwhile, the Jews and the Kureisch vied with one another in execrating Mahomet, and even his own people murmured against him. It was clearly time that an authoritative sanction should be given to the deed, and accordingly in the sura, "The Cow," we have the revelation from Allah proclaiming the greater culpability of the Infidels and of those who would stir up civil strife:

"They will ask thee concerning war in the Sacred Month. Say: To war therein is bad, but to turn aside from the cause of G.o.d, and to have no faith in Him, and in the Sacred Temple, and to drive out its people, is worse in the sight of G.o.d; civil strife is worse than bloodshed."

No possible doubt must be cast in this and similar cases upon Mahomet's sincerity. The Kuran was the vehicle of the Lord; he had used it to proclaim his unity and power and his warnings to the unrighteous. Now that Islam had recognised his august and indissoluble majesty, and had accorded the throne of Heaven and the governance of earth to him indivisibly, the world was split up into Believers and Unbelievers. The Kuran, therefore, must of necessity cease to be merely the proclamation of divine unity that it had been and become the vehicle for definite orders and regulations, the outcome of those theocratic ideas upon which Mahomet's creed was founded. The justification would not appeal to the people unless Allah's sanction supported it, and Mahomet realised with all his ardour of faith that the transgression was slight compared with the result achieved towards the progress of Islam. The Prophet therefore received, with Allah's approval, a fifth of the spoil, but the captives he released after receiving ransom.

"This," says the historian, "was the first booty that Mahomet obtained, the first captives they seized, and the first life they took." The significance of the event was vividly felt throughout Islam, and Abdallah, its hero, received at Mahomet's hands the t.i.tle of "Amir-al- Momirim," Commander of the Faithful--a t.i.tle which recalls inseparably the cruelty and magnificence, the glamour and rapacity, of Arabian Bagdad under Haroun-al-Raschid. The valorous enterprise had now been achieved, the Kureisch caravan was despoiled, and the Kureisch themselves wrought into fury against the Prophet's insolence; but more than all, the channel of Mahomet's policy of warfare became thereby so deeply carved that he could not have effaced it had he desired. Henceforth his creative genius limited itself to the deepening of its course and the direction of its outlet.

The Jews had not rested content with murmuring against Mahomet's rule, they sought to embarra.s.s him by active sedition. One of their first attempts against Mahomet's regime was to stir up strife between the Refugees and Helpers. In this they would have been successful but for Mahomet's efficient system of espionage, a method upon which he relied throughout his life. Failing to foment a rebellion in secret they proceeded to open hostilities, and the Muslim, jealous for their faith, retaliated by contempt and estrangement. During the winter of 623 personal attack was made by the mob upon Mahomet. The people were hounded on by their leaders to stone the Prophet, but he was warned in time and escaped their a.s.saults.

The popular fury was merely the reflex of a fundamental division of thought between the opposing parties. The Jewish and Muslim systems could never coalesce, for each claimed the dominance and ignored all compromise. The age-long, hallowed traditions of the Jews which supported a theocracy as unyielding as any conception of Divine sovereignty preached by Mahomet, found themselves faced with a new creative force rapidly evolving its own legends, and strong enough in its enthusiasm to overwhelm their own. The Rabbis felt that Mahomet and his warrior heroes--Ali, Omar, Othman, and the rest--would in time dislodge from their high places their own peculiar saints, just as they saw Mahomet with Abu Bekr and his personnel of administrators and informers already overriding their own councillors in the civil and military departments of their state. The old regime could not amalgamate with the new, for that would mean absorption by its more vigorous neighbour, and the Jewish spirit is exclusive in essence and separatist perforce.

Mahomet took no pains to conciliate his allies; they had made a treaty with him in the days of his insecurity and he was grateful, but now his position in Medina was beyond a.s.sailment, and he was indifferent to their goodwill. As their aggression increased he deliberately withdrew his partic.i.p.ation in their religious life, and severed his connection with their rites and ordinances.

The Kibla of the Muslim, whither at every prayer they turned their faces, and which he had declared to be the Temple at Jerusalem, scene of his embarkation upon the wondrous "Midnight Journey," was now changed to the Kaaba at Mecca. What prevision or prophetic inspiration prompted Mahomet to turn his followers' eyes away from the north and fix them upon their former home with its fierce and ruthless heat, the materialisation, it seemed, of his own inexorable and pa.s.sionate aims? Henceforth Mecca became unconsciously the goal of every Muslim, the desired city, to be fought for and died for, the dwelling-place of their Prophet, the crown of their faith.

The Jewish Fast of Atonement, which plays so important a part in Semite faith and doctrine, had been made part of the Muslim ritual in 622, while a federal union still seemed possible, but the next year such an amalgamation could not take place. In Ramadan (Dec. to January), therefore, Mahomet inst.i.tuted a separate fast for the Faithful. It was to extend throughout the Sacred Month in which the Kuran had first been sent down to men. Its sanct.i.ty became henceforth a potent reminder for the Muslim of his special duties towards Allah, of the reverence meet to be accorded to the Divine Upholder of Islam. During all the days of Ramadan, no food or drink might pa.s.s a Muslim lip, nor might he touch a woman, but the moment the sun's rim dipped below the horizon he was absolved from the fast until dawn. No inst.i.tution in Islam is so peculiarly sacred as Ramadan, and none so scrupulously observed, even when, by the revolution of the lunar year, the fast falls during the bitter heat of summer. It is a characteristic ordinance, and one which emphasises the vivid Muslim apprehension of the part played by abstention in their religious code.

At the end of the fast--that is, upon the sight of the next new moon--Mahomet proclaimed a festival, Eed-al-Fitr, which was to take the place of the great Jewish ceremony of rejoicing.

At this time, too, Mahomet, evidently bent on consolidating his religious observances and regulating their conduct, decreed a fresh inst.i.tution, with parallels in no religion--the Adzan, or call to prayer. Mahomet wished to summon the Believers to the Mosque, and there was no way except to ring a bell such as the Christians use, which rite was displeasing to the Faithful. Indeed, Mahomet is reported later to have said, "The bell is the devil's musical instrument."

But Abdallah, a man of profound faith and love for Islam, received thereafter a vision wherein a "spirit, in the guise of man, clad in green garments," appeared to him and summoned him to call the Believers to prayer from the Mosque at every time set apart for devotion.

"Call ye four times 'G.o.d is great,' and then, 'I bear witness that there is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Mahomet is His Prophet. Come unto prayer, come unto salvation. G.o.d is great; there is no G.o.d but Him.'"

"A true vision," declared Mahomet. "Go and teach it to Bilal, that he may call to prayer, for he has a better voice than thou."

When Bilal, a slave, received the command, he went up to the Mosque, and climbing its highest minaret, he cried aloud his summons, adding at each dawn:

"Prayer is better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep."

And when Omar heard the call, he went to Mahomet and declared that he had the previous night received the same vision.

And Mahomet answered him, "Praise be to Allah!"

Therewith was inaugurated the most characteristic observance in Islam, the one which impresses itself very strongly upon the Western traveller as he hears in the dimness of every dawning, before the sun's edge is seen in the east, the voices of the Muezzin from each mosque in the city proclaiming their changeless message, their insistent command to prayer and praise. He sees the city leap into magical life, the dark figures of the Muslim hurrying to the Holy Place that lies shimmering in the golden light of early day, and knows that, behind this outward manifestation, lies a faith, at root incomprehensible by reason of its aloofness from the advancing streams of modern thought, a faith spiritually impotent, since it flees from mysticism, generating an energy which has expended its vital force in conquest, only to find itself too intellectually backward and physically sluggish to gather in prosperity the fruits of its attainments. Its lack of imagination, its utter ignorance of the lure of what is strange, have been responsible for its achievement of stupendous tasks, for the driving energy behind was never appalled by antic.i.p.ation, nor checked by any realisation of coming stress and terror.

And the same qualities that led the Muslim to world-conquest thereafter caused their downfall, for their minds could not visualise that world of imagination necessary for any creative science, while they were not attuned in intellect for the reception of such generative ideas as have contributed to the philosophic and speculative development of the Western world.

All the characteristics which distinguish Islam to the making and the blasting of its fortunes may be found in embryo in the small Medinan community; for their leader, by his own creative ardour, imposed upon his flock every idea which shaped the form and content of its future career from its rising even to its zenith and decline.

CHAPTER XI

THE BATTLE OF BEDR

_"They plotted, but G.o.d plotted, and of plotters is G.o.d the best."--The Koran_.

Mahomet's star, now continually upon the ascendant, flamed into sudden glory in Ramadan of the second year of the Hegira. Its brilliance and the bewilderment caused by its triumphant continuance is reflected in all the chronicles and legends cl.u.s.tered around that period.

If Nakhlu had been an achievement worthy of G.o.d's emissary, the victory which followed it was an irrefutable argument in favour of Mahomet's divinely ordained rulership of the Arabian peoples. It appeared to the Muslim, and even to contemporary hostile tribes, nothing less than a stupendous proof of their championship by G.o.d. Muslim poets and historians are never weary of expatiating upon the glories achieved by their tiny community with little but abiding zeal and supreme faith with which to confound their foes. No military event in the life of the Prophet called forth such rejoicings from his own lips as the triumph at Bedr:

"O ye Meccans, if ye desired a decision, now hath the decision come to you. It will be better for you if ye give over the struggle. If ye return to it, we will return, and your forces, though they be many, shall never avail you aught, for G.o.d is with the Faithful."

Through the whole of Sura viii the strain of exultation runs, the presentment in dull words of fierce and splendid courage wrought out into victory in the midst of the storms and lightnings of Heaven.